[Coco] Another Radio Shack Article

Sun Jan 5 13:56:16 EST 2014

I think most of us realize that there were many better designed computers and technologies than the PC running DOS/Windows back then. Seems like everyone wants to blame Microsoft for this. I don't think it's quite that simple and I don't think you can blame Bill Gates or any one person or company for what happened. From the history that I watched unfold and from what I read over the years, this is the way I see it.

IBM had their internal projects to come up with a personal computer and the PC was born. Gates sold them DOS (which he didn't even create, he bought from someone else). Now why did the PC do so well? Ok, it had the name IBM on it which was respected as a serious Business Oriented Company, this in itself gave it a foot in the door with business owners. It was Open Architecture which spawned many start-ups because hackers and small entrepreneurs to create products and businesses more easily than other systems of the time. Less digging around or serous reverse engineering, the specs where out there. Microsoft provided an OS, weather you like it or not that worked and did the job. The clones popped up almost over night because of the open architecture and the ability to get on OS for it.

We all talk about the nostalgia and excitement of hacking, building things and all of that. Well I had a lot of fun and learned a lot about computers building my own PC clones from the ground up and then loading up the OS and configuring everything, I know many of us here did. Anyway, it's the entire open architecture model and holding to standards and compatibility with hardware, OS and software that really made the PC take off and get the foothold in the market. Up until that point, the market was very fragmented with proprietary hardware and software. I remember Compaq, Dell and Gateway clones hit the market and it just grew and grew. Remember Businessland and Computerland? With a business focus, how could it not take off like it did? The world was ready for the personal computer revolution and just like phones, TV, FAX, people needed something that worked and was standard. Business owners want to get the job done, they want support, and they want options. That's what the PC industry offered them. To most, it did not matter if an Apple, TRS-80 or anything else was better, the business owners saw IBM and IBM Compatible and felt safe spending their $$$ there and I think most business minded people can understand that. I had read way back when, that IBM really wasn't serious about the PC, they just put it out there because there seemed to be a market for it and they didn't want to ignore it. I'm fuzzy on all the details, seemed like they didn't really expect it to do much so weren't that serious about it and they didn't expect it to be the hit that it was. They probably never expected a clone market or for it to take off the way it did, and that may have cost them big time since you don't go to the store and by an IBM PC anymore, you go to buy a "PC". Anyway, IBM is probably more to blame for the PC taking off than Microsoft. Microsoft just filled the need with an Operating System and software. The thousands of 3rd Parties making hardware and software for it bolstered it's success from there. While most PCs are prebuilt or even all-in-one's like Apple's iMac today, I do like and appreciate the fact that I can go down Fry's ore where ever and buy each piece of hardware I need and built a custom PC to my liking for looks, size and performance.

For the mainstream computing, at this point in time, the PC is dominate and the hardware is plenty powerful enough, plentiful with many options in almost any area we would like. Whether you use a Mac or PC, or Linux box. For the most part, they are all fundamentally the same hardware. So whether running Mac OS, Linux or Windows, it's pretty much the same hardware under the covers in a configuration suitable to the job. 

So in response to your post Bill, I think the PC was destined to win and dominate, but I don't think it was due to any single person, company or group. I think there were many factors over time and it was driven by market force and consumer demand with companies rushing to meet those demands. I just think the PC's open architecture made that all possible and DOS that would run on any PC based on that architecture drove it to where were are today :)

On Jan 5, 2014, at 8:49 AM, Bill Loguidice <bill at armchairarcade.com> wrote:

> I think that's the key point we need to remember, that PC DOS systems, and,
> later, PC Windows systems, were destined not just to win, but dominate.
> This was not isolated to Tandy's stuff, of course, but the whole industry.
> Let's also not forget that no 8-bit really lasted beyond the early 1990s,
> with the last significant 8-bit brands rolling off the production line by
> 1993 or 1994, depending upon region, and even then they were already many
> years past their prime and mostly produced for specialty purposes
> (educational markets or for smaller European countries). The fact that the
> CoCo series lasted through 1990 is nothing to sneeze at in that regard. I'm
> sure outside of the C-64, Apple II, ZX Spectrum, and Atari 8-bit
> communities, every other 8-bit community would gladly trade places with
> that end-of-life date (and those platforms only lasted a few years beyond
> the CoCo). In fact, if you think about it, even the Amiga and Atari ST
> didn't last beyond 1993/1994, respectively, and they were a whole different
> class of system. In retrospect, there was simply no way to change what was
> going to happen. At best, the CoCo platform could have eeked out a few more
> years, but they wouldn't necessarily have been good years.
> 
> ===================================================
> Bill Loguidice, Managing Director; Armchair Arcade,
> Inc.<http://www.armchairarcade.com>
> ===================================================
> Authored Books<http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Loguidice/e/B001U7W3YS/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_1>and
> Film <http://www.armchairarcade.com/film>; About me and other ways to get
> in touch <http://about.me/billloguidice>
> ===================================================
> 
> 
> On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Boisy Pitre <boisy at tee-boy.com> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Tandy had its CoCo advocates, Mark Siegel and Barry Thompson, but I think
>> they would admit that they were fighting a growing tide of PC encroachment
>> which eventually felled the CoCo 3.
>> 
>> Best regards.
>> -----------------
>> Boisy G. Pitre | Founder
>> Phone 337.781.3570
>> 
>> 
> 
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